Former prime minister Tony Abbott earlier said Mr Dutton was “absolutely right” to say that there should be a place for persecuted white South African farmers under our humanitarian immigration program, in an apparent rebuke of Foreign Minister Julie Bishop’s refusal to back Mr Dutton yesterday.

Mr Dutton last week argued for the fast-tracking of humanitarian visas for white South African farmers, sparking a furious response from the South African government, which demanded he retract his comments. …

Mr Sukkar said he “applauded” Mr Dutton’s calls, as well as the work of WA Liberal MP Andrew Hastie, who initially raised the issue.

“From time to time, once you’ve got your borders under control, and you have a generous humanitarian intake as we do, you can from time to time make decisions to assist certain groups, as we did with persecuted minorities out of Syria and Iraq, and I applaud Peter Dutton,” Mr Sukkar told Sky News.